1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a vending apparatus that is suitable for vending elongated objects. In particular the invention relates to a vending apparatus utilizing vertically oriented vending slots with vertical coils disposed therein. There is also a semicircular retaining structure disposed on each side of each slot, to prevent the products from rotating as the coil rotates.
2. The Prior Art
Standard vending machines typically have several vending slots disposed in horizontal rows in the machine. The slots are horizontally oriented, with a rotating coil disposed in each slot. The vended products are placed between the wires of the coils, and are released as the coil rotates after the required fee has been deposited. The released product is pushed to the front of the machine where it can then drop to the bottom for retrieval by the user.
One of the disadvantages of this type of apparatus is that the product often becomes stuck in the coil and is not released. The user then has to put more money into the machine to buy a second product, at which point two products are released.
There have been attempts to prevent these problems by devising vending machines where the slots are disposed vertically, so that gravity can aid in the removal of the product from the coils. Some versions of these devices are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,064,092 to Grossi, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,363,422, 4,369,896, 4,258,860 and 4,312,460, all to Boettcher, U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,781 to Armstrong et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,674,653 to Suzuki, U.S. Pat. No. 5,333,754 to Kobayashi, U.S. Pat. No. 1,702,554 to Walker, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,273,748 to De Shon et al. While these devices allow the dispensing of small objects such as candy bars and bags of snack foods, they are not suitable for dispensing irregularly shaped items, especially those that are long and thin, such as beef jerky, powdered drink mix tubes, cigars and writing implements.